[img]http://i.imgur.com/dOSb5.jpg[/img]
Greece's Prime Minister Antonis Samaras (right) and Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras attend a vote for the new austerity measures at the Greek parliament in Athens, on Nov. 7, 2012. Greek lawmakers narrowly passed a crucial austerity bill by majority vote, but with heavy dissent from within the three-party governing coalition. (Thanassis Stavrakis / AP Photo)
[b]"Greece votes to cancel Christmas, along with all other paid holidays for public servants—but European financial leaders say its austerity triage might be too little, too late."[/b]
[quote]Just after midnight last night in central Athens, Greece’s Parliament voted to cancel Christmas and Easter, along with all other paid holidays, for public servants.
The legislators also voted to cap salaries at the Bank of Greece at €5,000 a month—around $6,400 in U.S. dollars—meaning that even the country’s most highly-trained financial workers will take home less than $3,800 after taxes. They voted to hike the retirement age from 65 up to 67, and to cut pensions for those already retired by 15 percent. Pay for military personnel and other civil protection servants will be slashed by as much as 35 percent, and judges’ salaries will be shaved by a third. Nearly 2,000 civil servants will lose their jobs in January 2013 if they can’t be transferred to other positions, and then some 6,000 more will lose their jobs every three months until the public sector payroll is manageable.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, many Greeks did not support the omnibus austerity bill, and nearly 100,000 angry demonstrators marched on Syntagma square outside Parliament to make their voices heard. Their rage was bolstered with Molotov cocktails, petrol bombs, and glass bottles. When things got out of hand, Greek police dusted off their water canons and blasted the angry crowds. Over 100 protesters were arrested and a dozen people were injured.
In many ways, Greece was once again debating—both in Parliament and on the streets—whether to stay in the euro zone or to finally give up trying to please the Troika, the trio of international moneylenders made up of the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB), and International Monetary Fund (IMF) who control more than $300 billion in bailout payouts for the debt-stricken nation. Before the vote, Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras appealed to the 300-strong Parliament, saying that they were deciding not just how to tighten the burgeoning budget and wrestle the growing debt, but whether to stay in the euro club at all. “Today we are voting,” Samaras said, “on whether Greece will remain a member of the euro or return to international isolation, collapse into bankruptcy, and go back to the drachma.”
At one moment during the Parliamentary debate, things became almost as tense inside the building as they were outside. A legislator, desperate to shave a few thousand euro off the budget, proposed cutting salaries for Parliamentary workers who had been exempt in previous incarnations of the package. In what lawmakers called an impromptu protest that could have led to complete chaos, the workers helping facilitate the vote stopped in their tracks and threatened to walk off the job. Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras nixed the idea and scratched Parliamentary worker benefits from the list of proposed cuts, allowing the vote to continue.
In the end, the austerity measure passed 153 to 128, with 18 crucial Parliamentarians in Samaras’s now-very weak coalition abstaining from the vote. Samaras immediately expelled the rebel legislators from his team and spun the passing of the tough austerity package as “a large, decisive, and encouraging step towards recovery and better days for Greece. ”
But the journey isn’t over yet. On Thursday morning, hours after the vote, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble threw cold water on the nation’s hopes that passing the bill would lead to an immediate handover of a payout check for $40 billion, which the Greek treasury desperately needs by Nov. 13. After that point, the country will effectively run out of money and have to issue the equivalent of an IOU for public worker paychecks. The bailout payment, which has been frozen since before Greece’s last June, is direly needed and has been held like a carrot over the Greek leaders to force them to pass tough measures “to prove” their fiscal discipline. But it may not be enough. “We are not out of the woods yet,” Schäuble told finance leaders in Hamburg. “At the moment I don’t see how we can take the decision [to make payment] by next week.”[/quote]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/PGX2E.jpg[/img]
A protester holds a mock gallow during a demonstration against new austerity measures outside the parliament in Athens on Nov. 7, 2012. Greek police today used tear gas to disperse demonstrators protesting outside parliament ahead of a key vote on a new round of austerity measures. Some protesters responded by hurling petrol bombs at police forces as the demonstration by some 70,000 people in Athens briefly flared up. (Louisa Gouliamaki, AFP / Getty Images)
[url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/08/greece-cancels-christmas-as-austerity-measure.html]SOURCE[/url]
Those bastards.
[video=youtube;q6heY7U0CwM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6heY7U0CwM[/video]
[editline]8th November 2012[/editline]
Austerity is so amazing! Please bring to 'Merica
They are literally the fucking Grinch.
This is ridiculous, Greece is fucked until it leaves the Euro.
Well if Greece wants to experience another Christmas as a country in the future, then they need to let this one go.
[QUOTE=Techno-Man;38377571]This is ridiculous, Greece is fucked until it leaves the Euro.[/QUOTE]
Greece is fucked independent of what currency it uses. The problem (rampant tax evasion) will continue regardless of whether they're on or off the euro.
[QUOTE=Techno-Man;38377571]This is ridiculous, Greece is fucked until it leaves the Euro.[/QUOTE]
They have to leave the Euro and say 'fuck no' to paying their debt or they will never get out of it alive.
This sounds like a plot to a christmas movie
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/57/Grinch_poster.jpg/220px-Grinch_poster.jpg[/IMG]
oh wait
[QUOTE=Daring_Robin;38377757]This sounds like a plot to a christmas movie
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/57/Grinch_poster.jpg/220px-Grinch_poster.jpg[/IMG]
oh wait[/QUOTE]
"How Greek Austerity Stole Christmas"
What use is this?
You can't unfuck what's been fucked anymore.
how the greeks stole christmas
Oh no! Christmas is ruined!
Wa-hoo fo-re da-hoo do-re
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;38377703]Greece is fucked independent of what currency it uses. [b]The problem (rampant tax evasion)[/b] will continue regardless of whether they're on or off the euro.[/QUOTE]
You are either delusional or intentionally dishonest if you think this is the only or even the main problem with Greece's current system.
Greece just seems like kind of a bad country to live in... I've yet to read an article about Greece that doesn't have the words "tear gas" in it.
[quote=Santa Claus]I've got some bad news, folks. Christmas is going to be cancelled. [/quote]
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;38377703]Greece is fucked independent of what currency it uses. The problem (rampant tax evasion) will continue regardless of whether they're on or off the euro.[/QUOTE]
They have to leave the Euro in order to default on the debt, there's no other way out.
Even if Greece could follow the Troika program targets they would still have a debt to GDP of 120% in 2020.
pay your taxes children
[QUOTE=valkery;38378478][IMG]http://ezyimg.info/content/344cAt.jpg[/IMG]
~perfect~[/QUOTE]
This is the threads album cover! [IMG]http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/laughing/laughing-hard-smiley-emoticon.gif[/IMG]
Greek politicians are getting coal in their stockings this year.
Oh wait...
Nah, Santa will just drop it all on their roofs.
[QUOTE=Mike42012;38377740]They have to leave the Euro and say 'fuck no' to paying their debt or they will never get out of it alive.[/QUOTE]
Like the other countries would allow that happen. Especially Finland and Germany.
[QUOTE=Ryu-Gi;38379182]Greek politicians are getting coal in their stockings this year.
Oh wait...
Nah, Santa will just drop it all on their roofs.[/QUOTE]
A loving santa would provide beautiful, clean-burning propane.
[QUOTE=Strider*;38378268]You are either delusional or intentionally dishonest if you think this is the only or even the main problem with Greece's current system.[/QUOTE]
[URL="https://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/why-is-greece-a-basket-case/"]I stick with numbers.[/URL] Feel free to descend from the land of make believe and explain what their "real" problem is.
The rioters should finally use force to depose these assholes.
[QUOTE=znk666;38382433]The rioters should finally use force to depose these assholes.[/QUOTE]
They have been, Parts of Athens at this point are divided between gangs and members of all the political parties and what they want. Anarchists, Union Members, Government supporters, Hell even cab drivers.
Well, if I understand correctly, Easter is more important to Orthodox Christians than Christmas, but this really sucks for them regardless.
[QUOTE=VOSK;38382460]They have been, Parts of Athens at this point are divided between gangs and members of all the political parties and what they want. Anarchists, Union Members, Government supporters, Hell even cab drivers.[/QUOTE]Even cab drivers? That's some serious shit then.
I kinda feel bad for Greece. So many problems, everyone's pissed, no one knows what to do.
[QUOTE=Xenocidebot;38377703]Greece is fucked independent of what currency it uses. The problem (rampant tax evasion) will continue regardless of whether they're on or off the euro.[/QUOTE]
Leave Euro and:
$$$Print money$$$.
[IMG]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Zimbabwe_$100_trillion_2009_Obverse.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=The Baconator;38377300][video=youtube;q6heY7U0CwM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6heY7U0CwM[/video]
[editline]8th November 2012[/editline]
Austerity is so amazing! Please bring to 'Merica[/QUOTE]
Molotovs scare the shit out of me, I feel sorry for those police officers.
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